Concrete Pier Build Photos

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Hi All

I’ve just been looking through some old photos and I thought I’d share them. I know it’s probably been done to death but last year I built my own DIY pier with some aircon pipe, concrete and brake disks.

I hadn’t got room in our little garden for a proper big observatory shed, so I converted our little old shed in to my ‘mini obs’/warm room. No room in there for a pier tho so it had to go outside ! Anyway, here are some photos of the pier building process from start to finish. The pipe has rebar in it running to about halfway up the pipe and the bottom disk has long threaded rods running down into the concrete to where the rebar ends. I put large nuts on these threads to act as a bit of an anchor. Total cost was under £100.

It took a bit of planning but having a pier is probably the best thing I have done to advance my astrophotography. It has allowed me to carefully drift align the mount and cut down my set up time to a matter of minutes, I just throw the telescope and camera on the mount, plug in all the wiring, flick a couple of switches in the ‘mini obs’ and I’m ready to go !

The mount lives under breathable waterproof BBQ cover when not in use and I run some low wattage boot warmer heaters under there it to keep moisture at bay.

I thought these pics might be of interest or useful to others who may be planning a concrete pier. The guy in the high viz is my mate Andy who helped me with the concrete bit !

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Thanks for sharing, some great photos there and shows exactly how it was done. Looks great by the way and inpsires me to get on with my own ----- SOON!

Steve

[tooth_dr]

Nice one Gary, that is a really professional looking job.

[Craney]

That is a very tidy piece of work.  

Like you, I've gone for the exposed permanent pier and  nearby  'mission control' shed.   

It can be a bit exposed to to gusty winds, but it does give you a lot of space to move around  and allows you to buy that 6"  F15 Apo  !!!!    

[steppenwolf]

That’s very neat indeed - very well executed 

[laser_jock99]

Good job.

[Nigella Bryant]

Great work, enjoy the darker night's with less set up time, lol 🌑🪐

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On 13/08/2020 at 12:41, Craney said:

That is a very tidy piece of work.  

Like you, I've gone for the exposed permanent pier and  nearby  'mission control' shed.   

It can be a bit exposed to to gusty winds, but it does give you a lot of space to move around  and allows you to buy that 6"  F15 Apo  !!!!    

Thanks

I just didn't have the room for a pier in an obs, the little mini obs/warm room/mission control works really well tho. Like you say the pier is exposed to the elements, particularly wind but our garden is small and I've put tall fencing either side of the pier to try and reduce wind influence a little and also block out a couple of street lights/neighbouring house lights !

I use the little SW 130 PDS on it and that is fine even in a bit of wind, the bigger 200 PDS is difficult tho and only comes out on calm nights. 👍

 

[Nigella Bryant]

Looking good, well done, I wondered what the gray boxes were on the pier, lol.

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Just now, Nigella Bryant said:

Looking good, well done, I wondered what the gray boxes were on the pier, lol.

Thanks.

Those are (cheap) outdoor electrical boxes, they house all of my plugs, cables, usb hub etc, they each have a 4 socket gang plug inside and there is also a main USB cable running from the hub back to the 'mini-obs'. These can be switched on and off independently with 2 switches in the shed. Just means I can chuck a telescope and camera on the mount, plug everything in, return to the shed and flick a switch to fire everything up.